Captain of industry modding

Captain of industry modding

Welcome to the official modding resource for the Captain of Industry game.

Status of modding support

COI is currently available on Steam and it is in Early Access stage. While modding is possible, it is not officially supported yet. We are continuously working on improving modding support and documentation.

Questions, issues

Note that mod support is experimental and APIs might have breaking changes. If you are having issues, always examine the logs in the %APPDATA%/Captain of Industry/Logs directory, they contain a lot of useful information. If you'd like to discuss modding topics with the community and devs, visit our Discord channel #modding-dev-general (you will need to assign yourself a Mod creation role in #pick-your-roles-here channel). You can also file issues here on Github, but the response time from our team might be delayed.

Prerequisites

In order to start modding COI, you will need to:

1. Own Captain of Industry on Steam and have the game installed.
2. Have .NET framework 4.7.1 installed.
3. (optional) Have Unity 2022.3.5f1 installed (needed only for asset creation).

Getting started

1. Locate the COI game files via right-click on the game title in the Steam client -> Properties... -> Local Files -> Browse.
2. Copy the game root path to your clipboard (e.g. C:/Steam/steamapps/common/Captain of Industry).
3. Create a new environmental variable called COI_ROOT and set its value to the game root path copied above. On Windows, use the handy Edit environmental variables tool, just open the Start menu and type Edit env and you should see it.
4. Fork/download this repo.
5. Compile the ExampleMod in the Release configuration located at src/ExampleMod/ExampleMod.sln. We recommend to use Visual Studio but feel free to use any other tools, such as the dotnet build console command. In Visual Studio you should see all dependent assemblies linked correctly. If not, and you are seeing a lot of errors, check you environmental COI_ROOT variable, try restarting.
6. Locate the resulting ExampleMod.dll in /bin/Release/net471.
7. Find your COI data files folder (where saves or screenshots are). By default it is at %APPDATA%/Captain of Industry.
8. Open or create directory Mods. Inside it, create a new directory that has the same name as your mod DLL, in our case it's ExampleMod. Copy the compiled ExampleMod.dll there, so that it is at %APPDATA%/Captain of Industry/Mods/ExampleMod/ExampleMod.dll. Note that the directory name and DLL name must match.
9. Launch the game and in Miscellaneous settings enable mod support and restart the game so that the setting takes effect.
10. Launch a new game and observe that the ExampleMod is loaded by locating a new node in the research tree (open using G key). In case of any errors, examine logs in the %APPDATA%/Captain of Industry/Logs directory.
11. Congratulations, you are now running your mod in Captain of Industry!

Assets creation

Assets such as icons or 3D models can be created using the Unity editor. We currently use Unity 2022.3.5f1 and it is recommended to use the same version to avoid incompatibilities.

Unity setup

One-time Unity setup needed for MaFi tools to function properly.

1. Download and install Unity 2022.3.5f1 from https://unity3d.com/unity/qa/lts-releases.
2. Locate the test scene in src/ExampleMod.Unity. Do not open it yet.
3. Create a directory link called UnityRootSymlink in srcExampleMod.UnityLibrary that points to the Unity installation folder (e.g. C:Program FilesUnityHubEditor2022.3.5f1). This can be done by invoking mklink /D <target> <srouce> command in console window with admin priviliges. For example: mklink /D "C:CaptainOfIndustryModdingsrcExampleMod.UnityLibraryUnityRootSymlink" "C:Program FilesUnity". When you navigate to the UnityRootSymlink you should see a single Editor directory in it.
4. Create hard-links for necessary DLLs from your Steam installation by running the src/ExampleMod.Unity/Assets/DLLs/create_dll_hardlinks.bat batch file. You will need to run it under admin privileges (right-click, Run as Administrator).
   • It is a good practice to look at any code you are running under admin privileges, so feel free to inspect the batch file first.
   • Alternatively, you could also copy the DLLs in question to this directory but hard link is better since any update to the original files will propagate.
5. Open the test scene from src/ExampleMod.Unity/Assets/ExampleModScene.unity in the Unity Editor. This can be done via Unity Hub by selecting Open project from disk in the Projects tab. Make sure you select the right Unity version if you have multiple installed.
6. Verify that you can see MaFi in the top menu on the Unity editor. If not, linked DLLs were not properly loaded and you will not be able to create assets.
7. Open the ExampleModScene by double-clickin on it in the Proejct pane (it's under Assets directory).
8. (optional) We also recommend changing the following settings in the Unity editor (Edit -> Preferences).
   • External tools -> External script editor -> Open by file extension. This will stop regenerating project files and placing absolute paths instead of relative.
   • General -> Disable Editor Analytics (if you can and want).

Creation of icon assets

Following steps describe how to package icons, for example for new products.

1. We recommend organizing assets in directories. Under the Assets directory create <mod name>/<icons categor> directory, in our case that is ExampleMod/ProductIcons.
2. Import images as png or jpg files to the newly created directory.
3. Configure newly imported textures to have Sprite (2D and UI) type and apply the change.
4. Assign the newly imported textures to any asset bundle from the drop-down menu on the bottom of the Inspector tab. You can create a new bundle called asdf or pick any existing one.
5. To use an icon in your mod (for example as a product icon), simply right-click on a texture and select Copy Path. That path can be used to load your prefab in the game.
6. Follow steps under the Packaging asset bundles to package the created assets.

Note: Unlike 3D models, textures do not need to have a prefab created.

Creation of 3D model asset

Following steps describe how to create a 3D model template that is very benefitial in creation of 3D models of buildings.

1. Define a layout entity in your mod with desired layout specified using ASCII (see ExampleMachineData.cs).
2. Set prefab path to "TODO" since we don't have a prefab yet.
3. Compile and deploy the mod.
4. Launch game with the newly created machine and run console command generate_layout_entity_mesh_template followed by your entity ID. This will generate an OBJ file in %APPDATA%/Captain of Industry/Misc/GeneratedMeshTemplates which represents a 3D bounding box of layout of your new entity with exact port locations.
5. If you don't have a 3D model, load the newly created template model to a 3D editor of your choice and create 3D model that fits it. If you already have a 3D model, you can compare it to the generated template and edit the ASCII layout accordingly.
6. When 3D model is complete, export FBX or OBJ and follow the next steps.

Following steps describe how to package a 3D model.

1. We recommend organizing assets in directories. Under the Assets directory create <mod name>/<model name> directory, in our case that is ExampleMod/ExampleModel.
2. Import 3D model files (OBJ, FBX, etc.) and textures (PNG, JPG, etc) to the model directory. You can simply use drag & drop. Creating a separate folder for each asset is recommended.
3. Drag the 3D model from Project pane to the Unity scene. Reset its position and rotation to all zeros using Inspector (you can use the three dots menu next to transform) and make it look as you want (add materials, etc.). Note: it is important that your asset has zero position and rotation. If you need to reposition it, change the 3D model or make a child object that can be moved.
4. Create a prefab by dragging the root object and dropping it to the project pane. This will make a new .prefab file. In our example we created the prefab in the <mod name> directory.
5. Assign the newly created prefab to any asset bundle from the drop-down menu on the bottom of the Inspector tab. You can create a new temporary bundle called asdf or pick any existing one.
6. To use prefabs in your mod, simply right-click any prefab and select Copy Path. That path can be used to load your prefab in the game.
7. Follow steps under the Packaging asset bundles to package the created assets.

Packaging asset bundles

Once your assets are ready, follow these steps to package them with your mod. Mods are published in a directory with the same name as your mod DLL, in our case we have ExampleMod/ExampleMod.dll. Now we can add asset bundles to the same directory.

1. Ensure that everyting in Unity is saved (use Ctrl+S).
2. Build asset bundles by right-clicking anywhere in the project pane (on any file or empty area) and select [MaFi] Build asset bundles. After Unity is done processing, asset bundle files can be found in the src/ExampleMod.Unity/AssetBundles directory.
3. Copy contents of the src/ExampleMod.Unity/AssetBundles to the AssetBundles folder next to mod DLL, for example %APPDATA%/Captain of Industry/Mods/ExampleMod/AssetBundles.
4. (optional) If you want to make it neat, you really only need the asset bundles (files in format YourPrefabName_xxxx, without extension) and the mafi_bundles.manifest file. All other .manifest files could be removed as well as the AssetBundles file.

If you do any changes to your prefabs, simply rebuild asset bundles and copy use the new files from the AssetBundles directory.